The Healer
by justgreat
Summary: A dying young boy is saved by a girl and a man called Luke who has awesome healing powers.


The Healer.

This story is set on a far away planet in the distant future. It is part of the Marvel X-Men universe but the characters are my creation. The planet is named Arcos. On Earth it is the year 2150 and space travel is now a normal way of life. There are no longer prisons. Any convicted criminals are sent on spaceships to Arcos and other planets like it where they are put to work as slaves and not only criminals. Those who have special abilities and, in the government's opinion, use them dangerously also wind up here. It is a planet several hundred years behind Earth in advancement, much like us in the middle ages. Slaves are of all ages. They are men, women and children and all are treated equally harshly. One such slave is called Byron, a thirteen year old boy who has been a slave since he was eight. His only crime is being the son of a convicted murderer who has already been worked to death. His mother was some woman he never knew. Byron knows it won't be long before death claims him also. Each night he prays for salvation and a better life. One day his wish is granted and that is my story. I intend this to be a one-off tale but if you would like it continued then please send feedback.

Byron knew that his health was declining. It was now extremely difficult to do his work and even though he was very tired each night sleep could not come easily. He was vomiting considerably now and he felt worse with each new day. On one particular day one of the masters approached him and said, "You're no use to us any longer, boy. Looking at you you'll be lucky to last another week. You'll have to go, I don't want you dying on this camp like your father. You should thank him and whatever whore he took up with in his spare time for bringing you into this world in the first place. You've been a good little worker but now you need to leave. I can't help you, kid, nobody can. The only advice I'll give you is find yourself a good hole and crawl into it. Probably be better that way. You may be lucky and some rich family will take you in and get you the medical attention you need but I wouldn't count on it."

And so Byron was cast out of the work camp. He knew there was a city a few miles away. He thought if he could get there he might find a doctor who could treat him and restore his health again. He didn't realise however that on this planet only wealthy people could afford medical bills. If you did not have the money no doctor would tend you. On the way he was fortunate enough to get a lift from a farmer who owned a large station wagon. Here and there you would find the odd car but only the very rich could afford them and these were supplied by Earth of course. They were the only means of transport available on Arcos. The boy rode on the back.

The farmer let him off in the centre of the city and wished him good luck. Byron walked past the open shops and fruit stalls wishing he could buy something from one of them. One little girl looked at him curiously and her mother took her hand and they moved quickly away from him. For about two days he searched for a doctor or someone who could help him but it was hopeless. He sat down on a wooden bench outside what looked to be a tavern and just hung his head in despair. He wasn't sure he could get up again. He was almost staving and had a serious lung condition which made him cough and retch persistently. All he could do now was consider how long he had.

As Byron pondered his fate a girl happened to be walking by. She stopped when she saw the boy slumped on the bench. Nobody else seemed interested in him but she came closer so she could get a good look at him. He guessed her to be a little older then he, perhaps sixteen or seventeen but she wasn't much bigger. She had blonde hair and a pretty round face. She wore a fashionable red dress.

She said to him, "Hello! What is your name?" He told her. She then asked, "Aren't you well?" He replied that he was dying and no one could save him. He's a slave, she was thinking, or he was. She then introduced herself. "My name is Myra and I live not far from here. You need to come with me. You will die out here. I can get you help."

"Why do you even care?" the boy asked. "Nobody else does!"

"But I do!" Myra responded. Poor lad, she thought, he's had no love his entire life. "You think nobody can save you but there is one who can. I will take you to him." She held out a hand and Byron took it. She helped him to his feet. He was clearly very weak by now. She put an arm around his waist and helped him walk along the road. They travelled a considerable distance and it was clearly more and more of a struggle for the ailing boy. Soon Myra had to literally drag him along.

"We're almost there, Byron, we have to keep going!" She urged him on and he forced himself to keep moving. They were almost at their destination when the boy stopped and fell against a wall behind him. He was looking very pale and drawn. He was clearly beyond any normal medical help now. He would have fallen to the ground if his new found friend was not there to hold him up. "Just a little further, come on!"

"I can't, I can't move!" There was despair in his voice. "Forget about me, I'm finished!"

"No, you're not!" He could see even in his dying state how determined she was. "I will carry you! I said I will take you to the one who can heal you and I will." She pulled him away from the wall and then lifted him into her arms. He had lost some weight but he was still quite heavy. She moved towards the large building which was her home carrying the now unconscious boy in her arms. He was about as big as she and possibly heavier yet with strength she never realised she had she carried him up the stone steps leading to the big front door. At the door she called out, "Luke, please open up! I have somebody here who desperately needs your help."

A few seconds later the door swung open and a tall man in his early fifties regarded with some surprise his adopted daughter and a young boy who lay lifelessly in her arms. He understood immediately and said to Myra, "Let me take him now, dear. You've done more than enough already." He held out his own arms. Myra passed the boy to him and Luke easily carried him inside. They entered the main room and the man placed Byron down on a large double chair. He sat down beside him and studied him at great length for some time.

At last he spoke to Myra. "It's incredible! This lad should be dead already but he wants so much to live."

"And he deserves to!" the girl replied. "He has only known pain and suffering just as I did until you came along and saved me. I implore you now to save him. I know you have not used your power for a few years and it may drain you now you are older. I know I shouldn't ask at all but please do it one more time for him."

Luke grinned. "Say no more, my sweet one, I will do it! Death isn't going to claim him yet." He proceeded to place his left hand on Byron's forehead and then closed his eyes. Myra could soon see the light emanating from Luke's hand. After several seconds the boy's face was less white and some colour was restored there. He appeared to look much heathier. The middle aged man removed his hand and stated, "He'll be fine. I will take him up to bed now. In the morning he will have a good breakfast because he need's nourishment."

"What about you! How do you feel?" the sixteen year old girl wanted to know.

"Oh, none the worse for wear!" the man grinned. "A little weak but it's been a lot worse." He turned to the sleeping young boy on the chair. "Now then, tiger, bed for you! Everything will be better in the morning." He then carried him to the upstairs bedroom.

Next morning Byron awoke and felt better than he had for a long time. He sat up in bed and wondered how he had come to be here. He remembered that girl who said she would take him to a man who would save him. This must be the place she was taking him he realised although he didn't recall arriving here. As he took in his surroundings Myra entered with a bowl of something in one hand and a glass of some sparkling drink in the other. My breakfast, he deduced.

She placed the bowl of oatmeal in the boy's hands and told him, "Be sure you eat it all, it will help build up your strength. The drink I have for you is called lemonade on Earth Luke tells me. It's very nice." She put it on his bedside table.

Byron ate the oatmeal. He didn't care much for it's taste but he knew it was good for him. He looked at the older girl and smiled. "Thank you, Myra, you've been very kind."

She pulled a chair up to his bedside and sat down beside him. "You look very handsome when you smile, you know that!" She told him as she ruffled his dark hair. "You should do it more often."

The former slave boy finished the oatmeal and addressed his pretty companion again. "Luke is the one who restored my health, isn't he!" Myra nodded. "I must thank him for what he did. I would be dead for sure without him." He added, "And without you."

"You're very welcome." She had a radiant smile, the boy noted. "I wasn't going to leave you out there to die." She took his hand in her own. "You poor boy, you have only known suffering and abuse just as I did before he came and turned my life around. I was a slave too until I was eleven, even younger than you, and then I was left to die when I was no more use as a slave. He found me lying in the street. Everyone else walked by but not him. He took me here and used his amazing powers of healing on me. I was all but dead and he brought me back. I can never repay him enough for what he did and neither can you. He told me that all he wants from me in return is that I show kindness and compassion to others and always help them when they need it and I always have since. You will soon have the chance to thank him. He will be coming to see you shortly. He wants to tell you all about himself. He originally lived on Earth but then they banished him to this planet."

"But why?" Byron wanted to know. "He's a good man, what could he possibly do that they thought was bad?"

"He will explain everything." She told him. "Meantime, young man, you are to stay in bed until I say you are well enough to get up. Luke has put me in charge of you."

Grateful as he was Byron resented being spoken to that way by this girl. "Hey, what's all this 'young man'! You're not much older than me and you can't order me around."

"Oh yes, I can!" She admonished him. "I am your nurse and you must do as I say."

"I would if I were you, my boy!" The two youngsters didn't realise that Luke had entered the room. He was clearly amused at their bickering. "I see you two are getting acquainted. You have plenty of time for that. Right now I'd like to speak to young Byron alone." He told the boy before Myra left the room, "Please do what she tells you, lad. She only wants what is best for you."

"I know!" Byron said to the girl, "I'm sorry, Myra, I'll stay in bed until you say I can get up."

"I will smack your bottom if you don't!" She said this only half seriously and grinned at him. He drank the lemonade and handed her the glass and the empty bowl. "I'll leave you two alone then." She left the room.

The middle- aged man asked the young teen how he was feeling now. Byron told him he was much better. Luke then inquired about his parents. The boy replied that his father was a bad man and his mother was just a whore who had him out of wedlock. "You have suffered for your father's sins and that was wrong. As for your mother perhaps whore is too harsh a word. She was probably just a woman your father found pleasure with and she didn't want you when you were born. Things may have been different if she had. If I had been born here instead of Earth I think my life would have been so much different."

Byron wanted to know about the time his saviour had lived on Earth. "I will tell you but first you need to know about it's history and particularly it's history of people like myself. We are known as mutants on that planet. As far back as ancient times we have been among the 'normal' people but not so many then. By the twentieth century however a lot more of us evolved. A certain Professor Charles Xavier stared the first school for gifted mutants.

"Most of us did not use our abilities recklessly or for personal gain. There were of course some bad mutants and they gave the rest of us a bad name. The authorities decided we were dangerous and had to be contained. They started developing devices to suppress our powers. They could control some of us but not all. I was born with the power to absorb infections and viruses from others. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not a miracle worker. I can't bring anyone back from the dead nor can I make the blind see or the crippled walk because the damage is permanent and can't be reversed. Most illnesses however can be removed from the human body before they become fatal. In your case I think I was just in time. I cure people, I don't resurrect them.

"As a younger man on Earth I used this ability as a service for those who really needed it. Normal doctors couldn't cure these people. They had infections like flu, rabies, leukemia which they still don't have a cure for. I never asked for any money but the government framed me saying I was exploiting these people. They knew I was a threat to large medical companies who were in business mainly for profit so I was sent here by spaceship. For some five years I was a slave also. One day the slave master became very ill and they were certain he would die. I decided to use my power on him much as I despised him. When he got better he learned that I had somehow cured him. He was grateful to me and gave me my freedom."

"So I'll bet you were glad you had that power!" Byron said. "It's a gift!"

"But not all gifts are a blessing, son!" Luke pointed out. "It has worked in my favour many times I must admit. I had to roam the streets of this city for a time and sleep rough. Here and there I would restore the heath of some shopkeeper and he would give me food and a room to sleep for a few nights. I manged to survive that way.

"I leaned that a certain senior official of the local authorities was gravely ill. I asked to see him and I was allowed to do so because it was getting around what I could do. He had contracted a very fatal epidemic that no doctor on Arcos, or on Earth come to that, could cure. I stood at his bedside and used my power to draw out harmful foreign bodies from his system. They were particularly bad ones because I was affected by them also. Since then I have been less willing to use my ability. The person in question happened to be quite wealthy and said that he must reward me.

"I told him that he didn't have but he insisted. He owned several properties and there was one which was empty. I refer to this one of course. He signed it over to me without wanting any payment. There was much work needed on it which I undertook. I lived here alone for a few years until I found Myra on the road and brought her here. It's been a delight having her. I now have several friends on the local council and adopting her was not a problem."

Byron spoke then. "She's very nice. Luke, do you think I could stay with you too? I'll always do my share of work and I won't be any trouble. Please!" This was not just a request, it was a cry for help.

"You will certainly do your share, lad!" The boy's face beamed. His question had been answered. "Myra has been quite lonely with just me here. I think you will be good company for her as she will be for you. At times you will find her bossy and demanding but that girl as a heart of gold. You will love her."

So Byron's future was in no doubt. That night Myra brought her soon to be young brother a hot drink to help him sleep. She sat beside him as he drank. When he had finished he asked her, "Myra, do you mind if I kiss you? I'd just like to show how much I appreciate what you did for me,"

Myra was a little surprised. She hadn't expected this, at least not so soon. She replied, "Go on then but just on the cheek." She leaned close to him and he planted a kiss on her left cheek which she rather enjoyed. The boy knew even then that he was falling in love with this lovely creature and she must have felt the same about him although she wasn't ready to admit it yet. "I'm glad to be staying here with you. My life's not over, it's just begun."

Byron just stared for a long time at the girl he would one day take as his wife and then said, "Can you stay until I fall asleep?"

"Of course, dear one!" she replied as she held his hand. "You sleep now, no one will hurt you anymore."


End file.
